55 MPH in Forward Reverse
by justafcknname
Summary: AU: Cook and Naomi are car thieves. One night a job goes wrong involving an innocent passerby. Naomi leaves the crime life behind and enrolls at Goldsmith's where she meets and falls for Emily... but why does she look so familiar?


**Author's note- Hello, fellow readers and writers of Skins!**

**This idea came earlier today while I was listening to music. It might work. It might not. I'll let you decide. I'm sorry for any grammar or British mistakes. I will be the first to say that I'm not the strongest writer and I needed something to help me write my Poetry of European Modernism paper; which I still don't get.**

**I don't own skins, but I'd be happy to as long as it isn't the US version.**

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**Leaving the beginning to reach the end. Do you look back, or face forward?**

I told him I didn't want to do it anymore. I was done with the lifestyle and I would be off to uni soon. 'Just one more time, blondie', he had begged me. He promised me that everything would be okay. We wouldn't get caught. We never got caught.

When I looked at myself in our small medicine cabinet mirror the night it happened, I didn't like who I was. I looked rough around the edges. My eyes looked dead and… there was a small line of blood slowly falling down the left side of my head. I turned on the faucet and wiped the blood off my face. I ran over it with my thumb. Red. Bright red. My knees buckled and I grabbed onto the sink for stability. I felt more lost than I ever had in my whole life and the only person that I was close to was my best mate… who I stole cars with.

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I had no idea how my life ended up that way. I was stealing cars with Cook, every week. It started right after college, when Cook's mom kicked him out of her house and he needed to find enough money for rent.

I was with him the first night he stole a car. We were just a bunch of lonely, punk teenagers back then that wanted to escape everything and everyone. Cook was agitated that night and I was wondering what was going on with him. He kept his hands in his pockets and would turn around every now and then. When I asked him why he was acting strange, he started to explain, but we were interrupted by a bunch of chavs that were messing with a little boy across the street. The little boy was about ten years old and looked terrified for his life. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cook tighten his right fist that had his name on top in small black letters. I looked over and saw the ultimate death glare. If looks could kill. I was practically shitting myself because I knew where this was leading. I knew that the little boy reminded him of his little brother, Patty. What I didn't know was that I would be helping him in the moments that followed.

Of course, Cook went after them and ended up getting his hands on one of them and beating the shit out of him. The other two guys managed to get their friend away from him and ran took off, leaving their pimped out car and the little boy running for his life.

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Cook learned how to hot wire a car from his Uncle Keith and as far as I knew, Cook had never stolen a car till the night I was with him. Of course, the first time, he busted the driver's side window in a fear of panic.

Again, I have no idea what provoked me to get in that car. Back then I was all about hating injustice, going to protests and doing my coursework to get into the best university possible. I wasn't an impulsive person. Fuck sake, I hardly left my room. It's amazing how one night; one little incident could change my life completely.

Cook hot- wired that car like he had been doing it all his life. I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the adrenaline that came from getting in that car. In fact, truth be told, I fucking loved it! Let me tell you, the high from boosting a car is unlike anything humanly possible. Well… maybe if you're dangling fifty feet in the air. Your heart pounds into overdrive from fear of being caught, hands shaking while connecting wires and the overwhelming hard on that you get while flying down the streets with your hair blowing in the wind, knowing a copper isn't far out of site. It's in that moment that you know what freedom feels like.

Of course, I didn't drive the first night that this happened. I wasn't even a rookie. I was literally, just along for the ride. Not to mention, Cook and I took MDMA prior to that event and I wasn't much help that night. My involvement consisted of my head hanging out the window, watching the overhead streetlights run pass my head with the fucking ridiculous cheesy dance music that was left in the chav's car that sounded amazing. It was your typical chav car with the blue lexus-arsed lights, cannon sized exhaust half falling off and the ridiculous huge fucking spoiler on the back. However, it was an Escourt Cosworth; which meant that Cook's rent would be covered for a few months. That was of course if he didn't spend it all on drugs and drinks every night.

Something happened after that night. It was like I had instantly changed. Shortly after that night, I moved out of my mom's house cause I was fucking tired of dealing with her and the other fifteen people that were living there. I moved in with Cook and took a gap year. I couldn't be bothered with Uni. I was having too much fun pissing about and not giving a fuck about what other people thought. Usually, I was just Cook's wingman and helped him with the tools and doors, so I had to find an extra job to help pay for the rent. I got a job working as a DJ at a local club with a young man named Thomas. On weekends, I would be at the club and during the week, I stole cars with Cook. We were less likely to get caught that way. We stole about one or two cars during the week, sometimes three if we felt smug.

I knew if we weren't careful something bad could end up happening…

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It started around midnight. Surprisingly, it was fucking hot that night in June; which was odd for England. Then again, everything about that night was fucking odd.

I went along with Cook that night because he took a deal with Bristol's famous drug-dealer, Johnny White and wanted me there to make sure everything went smoothly.

That was the problem. A few months prior, things started to get a bit dodgy. We took a job and when we went to pick up the car, the owner of the car, came out of nowhere with a baseball bat followed by three guys behind him. It was like he was waiting for us. We took off running. Another time after that when we went to get a car, it wasn't there. When we went back to the dealer, he was nowhere to be found. I became frantic and told Cook I couldn't do this anymore. I applied and got in to Goldsmith University in London and was leaving soon. I did the Johnny White deal as a 'one last time' thing, not to mention Cook was practically begging and bribing me to do it and what could I say? Cook was my only family.

Everything started out fine. The car was actually there; which is always a relief. It was a XR2, so it was going to be a piece of cake. Cook would work on the engine while I got the doors opened. We always wore insulated gloves because of fingerprints and because the wires could spark you. Cook popped the hood and located the plug and coil wires. Cook ran the wires that gave power to the dashboard. I used my trusty flathead screwdriver with an insulated handle to unlock the door and of course, it set off the alarm. I managed to set off the alarm without having any potential passerby's notice. I unlocked the steering wheel by taking my flat blade screwdriver and placing it at the top center of the steering column. I pushed the screwdriver between the wheel and the column, and then pushed the locking pin away from the wheel. The solenoid, cylindrical wire was underneath.

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By that time, Cook came around to the driver's side and I moved over to the passenger side. Cook crossed the solenoid and positive battery cable wire together with my screwdriver and the engine cranked to life.

Cook put it in gear and we were off in a flash, swerving around the few cars that were on the road. Cook was howling and thanking me for helping him out. I knew he was on a high because he always drove incredibly fast whenever he felt like the job had gone smoothly. At one point, I looked over and saw that we were going about 85 mph in a 55mph speed limit. That's when I started getting this sickening feeling deep in my stomach.

Several times, I told Cook to slow down, but he didn't listen. We got off the motorway and we somehow got lost and ended up on a street in a neighborhood. Cook was still going way over the speed limit and by that point we were yelling at each other.

"Slow down, you fucking tosser," I spat at him. He turned his head toward me.

"Don't tell me how to fucking drive, blondie," he yelled back.

It was during that moment that time stopped. Everything felt like it was in slow motion. I had turned my head and saw the red octagon sign pass by us. Then I saw a pair of frightened dark brown eyes connect with mine with the most vibrant red hair that I have ever seen.

I didn't have time to think. The next thing I knew I felt the car jerk and spin out of control.

The left side of my head made contact with passenger window and everything went black…...

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**So, what do you think? Leave it here? Continue? I probably won't be able to update regularly, so I apologize for that. This idea came to mind when I was listening to a song called, 'Sometime around Midnight' by The Airborne Toxic Event. Oh, and BTW that is not how you hotwire a car children. **


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